


Staying Behind

by Kemmasandi



Series: Changelings [2]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Ghost Stories, Haunting, Multi, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-23
Packaged: 2018-02-21 12:02:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2467592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kemmasandi/pseuds/Kemmasandi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's an old abandoned house on the edge of Jasper township. Since no foreign exchange year would be complete without a late-night ghost hunt, Miko rounds up a party of fellow thrill enthusiasts and makes a date of it. The initial expedition yields no results – but unbeknownst to Miko, something has followed her home.</p><p>And in a contest between the restless supernatural and giant alien robots, nobody's quite sure who wins out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Title:** Staying Behind  
>  **Rating:** T  
>  **Continuity:** TF:Prime [S2.AU]  
>  **Characters/Pairings:** Miko, Ratchet, Team Prime ensemble, Sierra, Vince, a few human OCs; vague references to Ratchet/Optimus, June/Fowler  
>  **Content Advisory:** Supernatural themes, Optimus and Ratchet are temporarily human, Vince has a foul mouth, Kem's stupid sense of humour, teenagers making bad decisions
> 
> Couple of years ago I got linked to a facebook page full of people's ghost stories and supernatural experiences, and despite me being a titanic wuss with regards to spooky things and horror, I spent a good few days browsing through it. Since Halloween is coming around again and I'm still in the fandom, I figured I might make use of all that inspiration and share the love, as it were. 
> 
> Apparently I'm much better at writing horror-y stuff than reading it. XD Although I did have to write most of this during the daytime, because otherwise it took me too long to wind down and go to sleep afterwards.
> 
> This is set in the ficverse based on [temporaryglitch's](http://temporaryglitch.tumblr.com) OptiRatch humanformers, so don't be surprised they're walking around in human bodies >:D Sort of an AU to the main once, since they're hanging around in Omega One rather than Unit E, but oh well. Lyrics at the top are from Rihanna's _Disturbia_ , which was one of my absolute favourite songs when I was like fifteen and I still think the music video is pretty cool XD

_…_   
_so bring your pretty lies_   
_we're in the city of wonder_   
_ain't gon' play nice_   
_watch out – you might just go under_   
_better think twice_   
_your train of thought will be altered_

_so if you must falter_   
_be wise_   
_…_

**STAYING BEHIND**

Part I

Miko didn't complain about leaving the Autobot base that night. Bulkhead gave her a strange look as he transformed, and discreetly kept a scanner on her all through the ride back to Jasper township. 

He didn't think she'd noticed, but she'd gotten pretty good at knowing when someone was keeping an eye on her since she'd met the 'bots. There was a note to their voices that changed. And she wasn't quite deaf yet, Slash Monkey or no.

She dragged her school bag out from Bulkhead's back seat as he pulled up the corned of the quiet cul-de-sac where her host family lived, and gave him a cheerful good-night. He drove off as she ran up the street, perhaps a little faster than most nights.

She had Plans for tonight. A pity Bulk couldn't come along, but she didn't think he'd get the appeal.

She passed her host mom's silver BMW in the driveway. The kitchen window was open, and the smell of barbecued meat drifted out over the side lawn. It was Friday, which meant a home-cooked meal at the dining table rather than TV dinners, with napkins and silverware and everything. 

It was a family tradition, but that meant nothing when Miko had a timetable to keep.

She checked the living room clock on her way to the stairs. Five to seven. 

She opened the door to her bedroom and squinted in the sudden glare. The October sun blazed orange over the hills to the west of the town. The air in the room was dry and stuffy from being shut up all day. She retreated into the shady part of the room, tweaked the curtains shut, and pushed open the bedside window to let in the cool evening air.

Then she left her bag on the floor beside the cupboard, and went downstairs to eat.

Dinner was even more excruciating than usual. Her host father was a real estate agent; she'd never met a man with such a soporific voice, although the usual topics of discussion couldn't have helped him much. Her host mom, a kindergarten teacher, had an unfortunate habit of balancing out her husband's sheer boringness with a manic sort of cheerfulness that set Miko's teeth on edge. The children, a middle-school girl and a first-grade boy, seemed caught between the two extremes. Miko found herself counting the ticks of the analog clock on the wall behind her host dad's head. 

He, unfortunately, mistook this for interest in his stories. This delayed dessert by a further five minutes. The little boy threw a tantrum at this unacceptable state of affairs.

Miko bore it all with stoicism that few would have thought her capable of. But she had plans for tonight, and she couldn't risk jeopardising them.

She approached her host father – the soft touch of the pair – after dessert. He had busied himself taking the dirty dishes to the dishwasher, so she picked up the last couple of cutlery items and followed him into the kitchen.

“Hey, can I go over to Sierra's house tonight? We were going to have a study group.”

Her host father gave her a look through wire-rimmed glasses. “I don't think you've bothered to study since you've been here.”

“Well,” Miko shrugged, “I need all the help I can get in that case, right? Besides, it's easier with friends.”

The man bent to fit a last plate into the back of the dishwasher. “Yes, so you can copy off of them. I remember my high school days. Did you plan to stay the night?” 

“Yeah,” said Miko. “Otherwise I might wake the kids up coming home.”

Her host father winced. “Yeah, I suppose that's practical. Sierra's family is okay with it?”

Miko nodded enthusiastically. “Her brother said it's fine, so long as we don't wake him up. He's got work in the morning.”

“All right, you can go.” He straightened, looking out into the dining room, where his wife wrangled with their sugar-addled son. “But behave yourself, okay?”

Miko made a grinning salute. “Will do!”

She turned and ran out of the kitchen, upstairs into her room.

The sun had set. A night breeze did circuits of the walls, setting the curtains moving in a way that was almost spooky in the shadows. She turned on the light. 

What would she need? A jacket, certainly; Vince had said that nights could be cold at this time of year. She dug her bright pink parka out of the cupboard and stuffed it in her bag, just in case. Water bottle, still with lukewarm dregs in the bottom. She drank what was left; she could refill it with soda at Sierra's.

The flashlight she'd bought from the dollar store was still in the side pocket. She tested the beam by shining it out the window; down in the back yard, the family dog blinked up at her and wagged its tail.

She checked the time again. Eight thirty-seven. Sierra lived on the other side of town, but Vince had said he'd give her a ride.

Her ringtone went off. 

She flipped open her phone.  _@ ur huse,_ said Vince.

Miko stuffed the last item – her charger – in her bag; picked it up, and left.

Vince was in fact waiting at a house two doors down. She recognised the garish flame pattern – someone had been trying way too hard to make that car cool.

“Dude,” she said, opening the passenger door. “Number 38, not 40.”

Vince shrugged. “Close enough. Are you gonna get in or what?”

Miko pushed the seat forward and climbed into the back. She was wearing a skirt, and Vince had grabby hands; she'd hate to have to beat her driver's ass and then ask him to take her home in the morning. Better to make sure the situation never arose, even though she'd love the excuse.

“So,” drawled Vince, as the car pulled out onto the road. “Ever been to a haunted house before? I mean a real one, not a try-hard theme park thing.”

“Sure,” said Miko. “We have ghosts in Japan too, you know.”

She hadn't, actually, but something about Vince made a girl want to lie through her teeth.

“Bet you haven't got ghosts like these,” said Vince. “These ones are vicious. I knew a guy who went in there and came out with dog bites all over him. He had to go to the hospital and get, like, two hundred stitches.”

“Sure they weren't, you know, actual dogs?” laughed Miko. Inwardly, she rolled her eyes. _Please, man. If you really believed that, there's no way you'd be going in there. You're just trying to scare me._

“I'm sure!” Vince protested. “Animal Control couldn't find any dogs. Even in that part of town.” His voice lowered, and she caught part of an oily smirk in the rear-view mirror. “Animals won't go near the house. They freak out. Stupid things.”

Miko grinned. “Smarter than you, then.”

They stopped at a red light that had turned while they were too far away for Vince to make a run for it. He glared at her over his shoulder. “You're coming with me. What does that make you?”

“I never said I was smart,” Miko replied sweetly. “That's the difference.”

It made Vince laugh. “Yeah, right.”

They stopped at a row of town houses and waited for a couple of minutes for Sierra's blonde friend, Angelique. The girl climbed into the back and didn't bother to fasten her safety belts.

“Jennifer says she's coming, but Laurence backed out,” she reported. “He says he wants to study for his AP Geography test next Monday.”

“What a pussy,” Vince jeered. “All right. Fuck him.”

“No thanks,” said Angelique, industriously texting. “Sierra says that Mahmoud and Katie are already at her house. Her brother's gone to bed, so we can leave whenever.”

“Did he get the six-packs?” asked Vince.

“Yeah. Ooh, Katie brought some too.”

Privately, Miko thought that mixing alcohol with the possibility of vicious ghost attacks sounded like a stupid idea.

When she'd overheard Vince talking about the supposedly-haunted Gold Rush-era mansion on the edge of Jasper, she hadn't been able to resist jumping at the chance. She'd been in the US for nearly a year now, and aside from the giant alien robots, it really hadn't lived up to all the exchange brochure had had to offer. A haunted house, though; that was the sort of thing that made her heart pump and excitement flow through her veins.

She'd wondered offhandedly if the Decepticons were up to something, and whether she should tell Bulkhead. But why would Decepticons be interested in the old house? It wasn't as if there was energon anywhere nearby. (Bulkhead would have told her if there was, right?)

They stopped to pick up another girl, the brunette Jennifer, then continued on to Sierra's house. She recognised Jack's house along the way, and then Raf's a few streets away. 

Vince pulled into the driveway of a house on the very edge of town, and parked on the hard-baked front lawn. “Ladies, we're here.”

Miko grabbed her bag and clambered out of the car. They trooped onto the derelict patio and picked their way through piles of mechanical junk to the front door.

Sierra pulled the door open. “Please be quiet,” she said in a low voice. “Ed has to get up at four-thirty in the morning and he'll kill all of us if we disturb him.”

She waited until they'd all come inside, then spoke to Miko. “Hey, have you seen Nick – I mean, Jack, oh God – lately?”

“Sure,” said Miko. “What for?”

Sierra tucked her bangs behind her ear and glanced away. “Oh, it's nothing.”

“Okay,” Miko said, stifling a grin. “Who's Nick?”

The redhead opened the pantry and took out a can of soda. “I don't know! He just looks like a Nick, okay? I knew there was a K in there somewhere, so I just guessed. It's not like I pay attention to every boy at school.”

“Just the ones with the alien motorcycles?” Miko murmured.

Sierra turned, passing her a can. “What was that?”

“Nothing,” Miko said quickly. “So, when are we going?”

Sierra retied her ponytail and shrugged. Miko had always had her pegged as one of the year's good girls, always studying and getting high marks in exams, never so much as toeing the line. Perhaps she'd have to rethink her initial judgement.

“Vince's friends say that the ghosts are most active between one and two AM, so we thought we'd go at midnight. It'll take about twenty minutes to walk down. Maybe more, if Katie keeps drinking.”

Another boy poked his head into the dark kitchen. “Sierra, bathroom?”

Sierra sighed. “Down the hall, first door on the right. And be quiet.”

“Yeah, yeah.” The boy vanished.

“But really,” Sierra added, popping the lid of her can, “it's mostly that bike of his that I'm interested in. It's beautiful.” She stared into the fizzing can and pursed her lips. “Please don't tell anyone I said that. Boys are a lot more socially acceptable as objects of admiration.”

Miko busily rewrote her opinion of the redhead. “Sure, I'll keep your secret. Monster trucks are more my area of expertise, anyway.”

“Yeah, but everyone knows you're—” Sierra cut herself off, looking somewhat discomfited.

“Weird?” Miko suggested. “Awesome? Japanese?”

But Sierra had shut herself down. “No. It doesn't matter. Come on, there's food in the den.”

It was five past nine.

They spent most of the next three hours watching a horror movie. It lasted a lot longer than its full hundred-minute run time; Angelica and Jennifer kept having to go out of the room to recover their wits, and Vince rewound the DVD every time they left. Miko, who had grown up on movies like _The Ring_ , mimed yawning every time he looked her way. It wouldn't do to let him think she was impressed.

Then it was midnight. They stopped the movie, found their respective coats, and straggled out into the front yard.

Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. She could hear the faint noise of traffic on the highway that led through the middle of town.

Some presence prickled on the back of her neck. She turned, and caught Vince creeping up on her with his flashlight beneath his asshole chin. 

“Boo,” he said, somewhat disappointedly.

She shone her own flashlight in his eyes, and smirked. “Better watch it, Vince.” 

“We should go now,” said Sierra, from the driveway. “Come on.”

They spilled out into the road. Miko shone her flashlight ahead of herself, not eager to trip on anything. The road was rough-sealed; there was no sidewalk on the other side, just a ditch and then a dry field. 

The sky was clear, and the moon was nearly full. It would probably be waning again by Halloween the next week. 

Miko spared a moment to think of Bulkhead again. Wheeljack too – the Wrecker might have appreciated a jaunt like this.

They turned onto a dirt road leading out of town, Vince and the tipsy Katie whooping in their midst. Miko drifted to the back of the group, where she could keep an eye on everyone else as well as their surroundings. Her heart was beginning to beat fast, adrenaline coursing through her veins. This was what she lived for.

After a few minutes she began to see a shape on the flat ground ahead. She sped up and tapped the other boy, Mahmoud, on the shoulder. “Hey, is that the place?”

He shrugged, doing his best to pretend that he hadn't jumped. “I don't know, I've never been there. Hey, Vince?”

Vince confirmed her suspicions. “Yeah, that's it.”

“It looks pretty big,” said Mahmoud.

“Three storeys, two wings. They say it was built beside an old Spanish graveyard.” Vince put the flashlight underneath his chin again and grimaced. “The spirits don't like visitors, they say.”

“It just looks like a big old house to me,” said Miko. “It's not very impressive so far.”

“Just wait,” smirked Vince. “I bet you'll be the first to be taken.”

“Riiight,” she said. “Twenty bucks says they take one look at you and decide to take pity on the rest of us.”

“I think you're both safe,” said Mahmoud. “Everyone knows it's always the black guy that gets taken first in the movies.”

Katie drifted up against his side. “Don't worry, we'll protect you. We'll make a sacrifice if we have to.”

“I nominate Vince,” said Miko.

“Shut uuuup,” Vince groaned. “You'll owe me twenty in the morning.”

“We'll see,” Miko said sweetly. “We'll see.”

A set of tall iron gates loomed up out of the night. Miko shone her flashlight at the stone pillars on either side. There were letters carved into the stone, weatherworn enough to be unreadable.

Vince jumped the fence into the property. “Let's go. If anyone wants to back out now, you're a fucking pussy.”

Miko squeezed between the bars of the gate. “Don't worry, Vince. You couldn't handle having one anyway.”

Jennifer, who was even shorter and slimmer than Miko, shimmied through the gate after her. Everyone else climbed over the fence. They gathered on the other side, in the middle of a wide avenue that had probably once been a driveway. The house loomed in front of them, looking bigger than Miko had planned for.

“Hey,” someone whispered. “On the top floor. Is that a light?”

Miko squinted, but all she could see was the moonlight shining off peeling white paint.

Jennifer shifted beside her. “I don't see anything.”

The whisperer spoke again. “I thought I saw something in a window.”

The little hairs stood up on the back of Miko's neck. She grinned. “Let's go see if you're right.”

She strode forward, forcing Vince to run to catch her up.

“Everyone stay together,” Sierra called. “This isn't a very good place to get lost in.”

The front door of the house was missing, perhaps kicked in by a long-ago foot. Inside, it was pitch dark. Miko shone her flashlight into the gap, illuminating a short, high-roofed entrance hall.

“Looks harmless,” she said, and went inside.

The floorboards creaked underneath her feet. Not dangerously, but loudly enough to have the hair on her arms standing up as well. Small plants grew in drifts of earth by the walls. There was a set of wide stairs at the rear of the hall, with a door on either side. One was hanging ajar, and it swung faintly in the night breeze. The other refused to open when she tried it.

Mahmoud shone his flashlight up the stairs. “I don't think we'll get up there,” he observed. “Half the steps are missing.”

Vince tried the banister for strength. It wobbled under his grip.

“Maybe not,” Sierra agreed. “At least there's still the ground floor.”

Jennifer peeked into the room beyond the open door. “It looks like a kitchen?”

They padded softly into the room. Jennifer was right; an iron range stood at the end of the room, two ancient stoves on either side. There were few other things left besides a twelve-foot long wooden table with a layer of thick desert dust sitting on top of it.

Miko took a closer look at the dust. It had been disturbed in places, as though a small animal had walked around on top of it.

There was a sudden loud clatter from the shadowy end of the room. Miko sank instantly into a ready stance, hands raised defensively. Someone else screamed quietly.

“it's just me!” said Vince. “Fucking knocked something down.”

“God,” said Sierra. “Who just touched my ass?”

“Sorry,” said Angelique, “that might have been me. I dropped my flashlight and I can't figure out where I am.”

Someone shone theirs at the floor. Angelique retrieved the flashlight from underneath the table, muttering her thanks. “Ew, it's covered in dust.”

“So is everything else in here,” said Mahmoud. “Hey Vince, there's a door behind you—oh shit, I saw something move!”

Vince spun around, and shone his flashlight at a bare wall. His shoulders slumped. “Not fucking funny, asshole!”

Mahmoud snorted. “Yes, it is.”

Jennifer found her way around the other side of the table. “Here's a door. It's locked.”

Vince shouldered his way past her and shoved the door in a fit of temper. There was a puff of dark dust, and the ancient lock disintegrated.

The room beyond was deep-space black. Vince's flashlight illuminated a narrow hallway leading into another stairwell. There were two doors leading off of the hallway, both hanging ajar.

They filed into the narrow space, clinging to each other's shoulders. Miko was last in; she propped the door open, just in case they wanted to come back this way.

The first door led into a long, wide room with a small window at the end. A patch of moonlight illuminated a floor covered in yet more dust. Vince's flashlight beam passed over a small cot at the far wall.

“Oh God,” said Angelique. “Someone go tell me that's empty.”

Vince, eager to prove himself after Mahmoud's trick, stepped into the room. He crossed the floorboards in quick, skittish steps, and peeked into the cot. After a moment, he visibly relaxed.

“Not even a blanket.”

Angelique hugged herself. “Thank God. I thought— Why would they leave just a cot here?”

Miko shrugged. “Maybe they didn't. Maybe someone just wanted to creep people out.”

“Right, how likely is that?” Vince snorted. “Come on, let's go, next door.”

The next door led into a stone-walled room with ancient wine racks against the walls. Nobody went in; there were no other doors to test.

The stairwell at the end of the hall was in even worse condition than the one in the entryway. It led both up, and down.

By unanimous decision they decided not to go into the cellar. Sierra pointed out that even if the stairs were whole, if they broke while someone was going down, that someone would have no way of getting up again. Such cold logic took the sting out of the voice in the back of Miko's head that said she was just being a coward. 

They moved onward. There was another door on the other wide of the hallway, which led into another empty room like the one with the cot. Mahmoud wondered aloud if it had been servants' quarters while the mansion was in use. Parts of the floor creaked loudly – they stepped very lightly, testing each bit of boards before they crossed.

The next door led into a basic antechamber with an open fireplace. Wind whistled eerily down the chimney, disturbing century-old ashes in the grate. Again, there was a window in the wall, and a door leading out onto a derelict terraced balcony.

Miko again was the last through the door. She turned back for a moment as she passed through – and something flickered at the corner of her eye.

She frowned, and looked again.

The room behind her was empty. Moonlight shone in a bright square on the dusty floor, shadows creeping through the open door.

She shook her head, and followed the others out onto the balcony.

The ground at the rear of the house dropped away suddenly into a deep depression. It was a good two hundred feet wide, and probably twice as long. The deepest parts were covered in cracked dry mud, the odd hump here and there rising a couple of feet above the unnaturally flat surface.

Prickles rose on the back of her neck. She turned again, checking behind herself. Again, there was nothing within sight.

But something was wrong. She could feel it.

The night was quiet, only the sound of the wind through the treetops to be heard. A nocturnal bird called.

They filed along the balcony, quiet mutters passing from person to person. Vince came to a door, and tested its lock. This time, the lock held firm.

“Fuck it,” said Vince, and stumped back out to the front of the house. “This was a big fucking waste of time.”

“I don't know,” said Angelique, smiling breathlessly now that the danger was over. “It was kind of fun.”

Miko shook her head, in an effort to clear her thoughts. Ironically, she'd felt safer inside the old house. Her back prickled; she kept turning her head to look behind herself, just in case something came out of the woods.

“Weird,” she muttered. 

A crack like a gunshot split the air.

She threw herself forward, nearly stumbled, and ran. She heard screams as the others fled up the driveway after her. They came to a messy, stumbling halt at the iron gates, collecting themselves.

“Where's Vince?” someone asked.

Laughter followed them up the driveway. Vince ambled out of the darkness, the two halves of an old dry branch in his hands.

“Wow,” he grinned, winking at Miko. “You shoulda seen yourselves run. Pussies, all of you.”

“Fuck you!” Jennifer shouted; Mahmoud and Katie echoed the sentiment. “You're a fucking jerk, you know that?” 

“Hey,” said Vince, “you guys signed up for this. Why are you complaining?”

Miko stared back along the driveway. Sure, Vince was an asshole, but the feeling of wrongness that had made her run hadn't faded.

The old house sat in the moonlight, still and silent.

A hand came down on her shoulder.

“Should have seen yourself run,” said Vince, smug as butter and twice as oily. “You ought to have signed up for track and field.”

Miko hauled off and hit him.

It didn't make the night any less embarrassing, but at least she felt better afterward.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once upon a time, I read a manga called _Ghost Hunt_. It was very much a formative influence on the young Kem, and among other things resulted in a lot of sleepless nights for fear that Urado was creeping around the house. 
> 
> I know. I'm a gigantic wuss.
> 
> This story is not based on any of the Ghost Hunt stories, but it sure as hell was at least partly inspired by them.

…

STAYING BEHIND

_Part II_

Ratchet woke late on Saturday morning.

He sat up, rubbing the heel of his palm over his eyes until his vision sharpened. The berth – bed, he corrected himself – that he usually shared with Optimus was otherwise empty. On the bedside table, the alarm clock ticked over to ten-thirty-four AM.

Ratchet hauled himself out of bed, and stumped over to the ensuite bathroom; he may as well put off the day a little longer. 

He dragged a brush through his hair before stepping into the shower. The spray was warm and a little soporific – he turned the temperature gauge up until the heat began to sting his synthetic skin. His nerves tingled, his body thrumming with sensation. The weight of his wet hair dragged at his head. 

He set to washing his hair, face habitually tipped toward the ceiling so that the soap wouldn't drip into his eyes. There was an art to it, like all things, but Ratchet hadn't been human long enough to appreciate it. He dragged his fingers through the matted clumps, his lip curling in disgust as loose hairs came away wrapped around his digits.

Afterwards, he shaved. Optimus may have been content to let his facial hair grow, but Ratchet didn't particularly like the reminder that he was stuck in the body of something that was essentially a kind of ape with Standards.

He stepped out of the shower, wrapped his body in a fluffy orange towel, and stood for a moment, not sure what to do next. 

Optimus would be in the main silo already, standing on the mezzanine and quietly coordinating the efforts of the remaining members of Team Prime. Ordinarily Ratchet would have joined him without a second thought – but today was a Saturday. The children would be there.

Jack and Rafael were not so bad – the boys were quiet enough that he could concentrate around them, and he even liked Raf's company these days, although he tried not to admit it to himself.

Miko, though, was intolerable. She had been bad enough when she could fit into the palm of his hand; now, she was only a little shorter than Ratchet himself. Proportionally, he found himself far less able to ignore her exuberance, her energy and volume.

She'd go a long way, someday. 

Hopefully far away from Ratchet.

He sighed, and dried his face with a corner of the towel.

Out into the silo it was. He had work to be getting on with.

He pulled a loose shirt and slacks out of his cupboard. The shirt was patterned white and grey, not unlike his old paintjob, and buttoned closed at the center of the chest. He left the top three buttons undone as usual (humans ventilated through the neck – collars seemed to him to invite unnecessary danger) and made his way out into the silo.

The children were indeed there. Jack and Raf sat on the couch, watching the late morning cartoons. They looked his way as Arcee greeted him from the scanner station, and Raf shouted a cheerful “Good morning!” down to him as he began to climb the mezzanine stairs.

Bulkhead, standing close to the end of the mezzanine, gently shushed the boy. “You'll wake her up.”

Raf looked contrite. “Sorry.”

“Wake who up?” said Ratchet.

He rounded the end of the couch, and saw Miko, stretched out of the floor between the back of the couch and the railing.

The girl cracked open an eyelid. “It's not like I'm not already awake,” she groused. She was wrapped from head to toe in a thick black blanket, a pink jacket pillowing her head. There were dark circles under her eyes.

“What are you doing?” asked Ratchet.

Miko's brown eyes darted to him. “Oh – hey, doc. I don't know, what does it look like?”

“That was needlessly sarcastic,” he informed her. “I meant why are you doing it here, rather than in your bed? Which is where I was informed humans generally attempted to sleep.”

She snorted, and pulled the blanket up over her chin. “I got exactly zero sleep last night, so I'm trying to catch up. Not having a lot of luck so far.”

Ratchet frowned. “Why the lack of sleep?”

“What are you, the Spanish Inquisition?” said Miko. “Wanna put some thumbscrews on me too, dude?”

He scowled. “Fine – the next time you look to be in alarming health I'll just keep quiet until you drop dead, shall I?”

She groaned theatrically. “It's not like Bulk hasn't already asked me the exact same questions.”

Ratchet turned to Bulkhead, who put his hands up in the air as if surrendering. “I don't know anything either, Ratch.”

A hand touched Ratchet's shoulder, and Optimus appeared beside him.

“I agree with Ratchet's assessment,” he said, his voice sober. He crouched closer to Miko's level, continuing. “You do not look well. Is it due to anything we should be worried about?”

Miko sighed and looked away. “No. I just went to a haunted house last night, that's all.”

Jack peered over the back of the couch at her. “I wouldn't have guessed that you of all people would have had trouble with one of those. You know they're just actors, right?”

“Not one of those!” Miko protested. “You know that big house on the edge of town? Well, Vince says it's haunted, but we never saw anything.”

“Oh, right. You went to Pinehurst?”

Miko half sat up, resting her weight on her elbows. “It has a name?”

Jack realised that he was suddenly the center of attention. “Yeah, most of these big old places do.” To the gathered Cybertronians he hastily explained, “It's an old mansion on the northwest side of Jasper, off a dirt road going up into the hills. It's about a hundred and forty years old, and it's been empty for most of that, so there have been rumours about it for basically as long as the town has been here.”

“So you went poking around a ruin in the dead of night, with nobody knowing where you'd gone,” said Ratchet, scowling pointedly at Miko.

She drew herself up defensively. “Hey, Sierra's brother knew.”

“What about your host parents?” asked Jack.

“They knew I was with Sierra,” said Miko, somewhat diplomatically. “Besides, it's not that much of a ruin. There's just a lot of dust and empty rooms inside.”

Jack frowned. “It's been empty for more than a hundred years. That doesn't sound right.”

“Well, it is.” Miko lay back down again, as if to sleep, but quite soon after opened her eyes. “I don't know. It felt kind of weird. Not while we were in there, but after we came out. Vince said it was built by an old graveyard...”

Jack snorted. “Since when has Vince ever said anything worth listening to? He's full of—” he looked at Ratchet and Optimus, and visibly changed the word he was going to say— “hot air.”

“And you know better?” said Miko, raising her eyebrows at him.

“I had to write an essay on a Jasper landmark in eighth-grade History,” Jack explained with a shrug. “It was financed by some miner who made a fortune in the Gold Rush. It's not built beside or on top of a graveyard, it's only on Native American land in the sense that virtually the whole country is, and the owner sold it because he got old and moved into Las Vegas – not because he went mad, not because he killed his servants and buried their bodies somewhere on the property, and definitely not because he was being harassed by vengeful spirits.”

Ratchet had to bite back an amused smile at the disappointed look on Miko's face.

He turned and headed toward his temporary workstation, leaving the children to pester Jack for more information.

Optimus caught up with him halfway along the mezzanine. “Since I neglected to say this before, good morning, old friend.”

A cool hand touched the back of his wrist; Ratchet turned his own hand into the contact, sliding his fingers against Optimus' palm. He looked up into Optimus' smiling blue eyes.

“I suppose it is,” said Ratchet. “What have I missed so far?”

“Very little,” said Optimus. “The Decepticons are still avoiding our scanners with better success than I'd like, and Smokescreen is on morning patrol; hence, with Miko's unusual state, we have had an unusually quiet morning.”

Ratchet laughed, leant into Optimus' shoulder. “Perhaps I should have woken earlier. I'd hate to have wasted such a gift.”

Optimus hummed quiet assent, and wrapped a long arm around Ratchet's shoulders.

One of the hardest things about getting used to their synthetic human bodies had been the lack of electromagnetic sensitivity. Humans had five basic senses: sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing. Cybertronians lacked two of these – taste and sense of smell – but possessed other, more specific senses in their place, of which the ability to sense the electromagnetic fields of the environments around them was overwhelmingly dominant.

Without it, Ratchet felt blind and clumsy, relying on sight and vestibular perception alone to navigate his environment. He could no longer read his teammates' moods and energy levels without invasive scanning. He misread jokes, walked into tables and doorframes, felt isolated from mecha he had known for vorns. 

He woke up from nightmares and panicked when he could no longer feel Optimus' EM field next to him. Cybertronian electromagnetic fields were made strong and vivid by the sparks within their chests; a body without an EM signature was a corpse. It was sometimes enough to send Ratchet spiraling into blind panic – and he'd die before he shared the secret, but the handful of nights he'd woken pressed to Optimus' chest, hearing the deep hammer beat of Optimus' heart within his chest, told him that he was not alone in this. 

Most species advanced enough to have a code of ethics considered extended sensory deprivation a form of torture. Ratchet had previously known this, but only now was he beginning to truly understand it.

They reached his workstation, a collection of human-sized monitors attached to a Cybertronian-designed monitor that probably should have been retired vorn ago. He fired up the collection of machines in an attempt to distract himself from his maudlin train of thought.

Optimus shifted, placing his hand on Ratchet's closer shoulder in a less restrictive stance. “How is your investigation going?”

“Slowly,” said Ratchet, his tone frank. He brought up the virtual keyboard, downsized to suit small human fingers, and typed in his password. “I have complete scans of our base coding, physical spark relays, and cloud processors. I may also have a theory.”

He glanced over his shoulder at Optimus. The Last Prime waited attentively for him to continue.

“Before the war, there was an upswing in the amount of research focusing on the development of fracturemecha and gestalts. The one institute that kept coming up, either as sponsor or outright manager, was the Kimia Laboratory of Function and Design. Its president, at the time, was Jhiaxus.”

Optimus' face didn't move a muscle, but his eyes went dark and stormy. “The Decepticon.”

Ratchet grimaced at his screen. “Yes.”

“If he is on Earth...” Optimus began, then cut himself off with a sharp shake of his head. “Please continue.”

“I can't rule it out,” said Ratchet, “but I can't confirm it, either. We know that Shockwave is at least within the system, and while Jhiaxus was one of Cybertron's premier cerebroscientists, he wasn't a spark specialist. Shockwave  _is._ ”

He thinned his lips. “The worst-case scenario, therefore, is that they're working together.”

“Would they?” asked Optimus.

“Again, I can't say for sure. Jhiaxus, or so I have read, was never an easy mech to get along with. Shockwave, on the other hand... his sentence involved both empurata and what the legal castes euphemistically called 'cerebral realignment' – the removal of self-identification protocols and the spark-deep coding pathways which support internal personhood. It was meant to make them biddable, easy for the system to control. I very much doubt that such a mech would have been capable of caring about the personal qualities of his co-researcher.” 

He could almost feel the horror radiating off of Optimus. The hand on his shoulder trembled once, then firmed.

“Regardless of the identities of the Decepticons involved in what has been done to us, have you come to any conclusions regarding how we might reverse it?”

“Only that it will happen with great difficulty,” said Ratchet. “I think, based on the fact that our sparks remain in our proper frames, that we may have been made into artificial fracturemecha. However, I'm still looking for proof – which is why I have these scans to look at.”

Optimus nodded sternly. “If there is anything you require for your work, do not hesitate to ask for it. This project is for now our top priority. If you come across anything new while I am at the Pentagon, contact me immediately.”

Ratchet nodded absently.

Then Optimus' full sentence sunk in. 

He turned, grabbed Optimus' sleeve as the Last Prime began to walk away. “Wait a klik – while you're where?”

Optimus gazed searchingly at him. His expression, so much more clear on a human face than on a Cybertronian one, quickly segued from confusion to self-recrimination.  
“I meant to tell you yesterday. Did I neglect to do so?”

Ratchet rubbed his temples. “You must have; it's news to me. You're going away?”

“My apologies,” said Optimus, softly. “General Bryce has organised for me to speak with the Secretary of Defense and a representative from the United Nations Security Council regarding our current predicament. I gather that the human elements of our alliance are worried about the possibility of Decepticon infiltration into human society.”

Ratchet snorted. “Given Jhiaxus' track record, if he is involved, I think it's far more likely that he just wants to play. He was hardly a Decepticon at all; they just gave him most of what he wanted as long as he did certain things for them.”

Optimus' frown lightened, giving him the look of early stages of exhaustion. “I can only hope that is the case.”

Ratchet had no answer to that. Instead, he asked, “What time do you leave?”

“Agent Fowler will be arriving presently to take me to Nellis Air Force Base.” Optimus took Ratchet's hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “I hope to be back on Monday evening.”

“I see.” Ratchet returned the squeeze, reminding himself that the lack of a replying EM signature didn't mean dead or dying. “Be safe, Optimus.”

A quick smile underneath his short beard. Optimus stepped forward, pressing his forehead against Ratchet's for a moment. “And you, old friend.”

Then he pulled away, and left the mezzanine.

Ratchet touched his forehead, feeling the warmth where Optimus had touched him. He sighed, shook his head to clear his thoughts, and began to sift through the data onscreen. 

Agent Fowler's voice came through the comms a few minutes later. Arcee, that morning's communications officer, greeted him, and cleared the liaison to have his helicopter land on the roof. Optimus disappeared into his and Ratchet's shared bedroom, and returned carrying a small suitcase and a wireless notebook computer, which Ratchet recognised as the one he and Raf had spent a rainy weekend modifying not long ago.

Another round of explanations to satisfy the children's curiosity, and he was gone. 

Ratchet spent the morning examining his proper frame's spark data relays. It was hard work; he had to keep going back and forth between the relay blueprints and the relevant bits of his base coding, reading and rereading to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be. As a physician, he had been in the job long enough to have picked up multiple qualifications and specialties, but base coding and spark analysis still made him nervous.

At least he could still read Cybertronian. 

June Darby's arrival at lunchtime was a welcome interruption. The nurse brought with her a simple pilaf in two ceramic bowls, rice and several vegetables with a light salty seasoning of some sort. She offered a bowl to Ratchet with a smile. 

He took it, warily sniffing; the human sense of taste was intense when one was new to that entire vector of experience, and he still couldn't handle most of the children's favourite dishes.

The bowl was warm, however, and the smell enticing. He tried a small bit, just to test, and found himself eating the whole thing.

He and June ended up at the short table at the children's end of the mezzanine. Jack and Raf scooched over to give June room on the couch, while Ratchet and Miko sat cross-legged at either end of the table.

Miko seemed to have recovered from her active night. She slurped happily on a bowl of instant kimchi noodles, which gave off thick steam Ratchet could smell even from the other end of the table. 

June finished her meal and leaned back against the thick velvety couch, closing her grey eyes. “Ooh, it's good to relax for once.”

Jack swallowed a bite of his sandwich. “Was it a busy shift last night?”

June nodded, placing her empty bowl on the table without looking. “Two car crashes and a Halloween prank that went wrong. A high school kid ended up with one of those iron railings on the fences around those old houses on West Henderson Road going right through his thigh. Have I mentioned lately how deeply I appreciate having you as my son, Jack?”

Jack looked nonplussed. “I think so, yeah?”

“Good,” said June, with feeling. “The only thing I have to worry about with you is the giant alien robots you hang out with.”

Miko snickered. “You should get out more, dude.”

“And go sneaking into abandoned houses in the dead of night?” Jack said, pointedly raising his eyebrows at her. “Thanks, but no.”

June opened her eyes. “Who went sneaking into an abandoned house?”

Ratchet, Jack and Raf pointed silently at Miko.

The girl rolled her eyes. “It was just once! And it was haunted. How am I supposed to resist that?”

June sighed. “Do I need to talk to your host parents, Miko?”

“They know I was gone,” Miko said. “And nothing important happened. Why worry them over something that's in the past?”

“She went to Pinehurst with Vince and some others from our class,” Jack explained. “Apparently it was a bust as far as ghosts were concerned.”

June held Miko's gaze for another few moment, then relented. “That house is really not safe,” she said. “It's been empty since the 1890's. Who knows what damage the lack of upkeep has done to it.”

“It didn't look that bad when we were in it,” said Miko. “There was just a load of dust. Some of the doors were rusted shut.”

“Regardless, it was dangerous,” June said firmly. “And if you really wanted an adrenaline rush, you could have gone to the haunted house on Jefferson Street.”

Miko rolled her eyes. “They'e just people, though. I wanted ghosts.”

“And instead you got Vince,” Jack teased, and got given an evil eye for his trouble.

“Vince is a jerk, everyone knows that,” said Miko, and slurped the rest of her noodle juice.

Bulkhead arrived from his shift at the monitors. “What did Vince do?” 

“Cracked a stick real loud and made us run away,” Miko muttered. “I dunno, I was just feeling weird, so I ran when everyone else did. But I punched him after, so we're even now.”

Ratchet pinched the bridge of his nose. “You certainly know how to make friends,” he said dryly.

“You'd wanna punch him too, if you had him sliming at you!” Miko defended herself. “He goes all, 'ooh, you should try out for track and field, har har!'” She made a face, doubtless meant to represent the boy in question. “It's gross, and someone really should have punched him for it before now.”

Raf piped up, deftly changing the subject. “What do you mean when you say you felt weird?”

Against Ratchet's expectation, Miko went even quieter. “I don't know. It was fine inside the house, but when we got outside I suddenly started feeling like something was watching me.”

There was a short silence.

“It couldn't have just been Vince, could it?” asked Bulkhead.

Miko shook her head. “I don't think so. I kept feeling it until we were back in town.”

The roar of a high-powered engine echoed in the driveway tunnel. Smokescreen tore into the silo, throwing himself into root mode and barely missing Bumblebee, who let out an interesting binary swearword. The rookie shot an apology over his shoulder at the departing scout, and made his way to the mezzanine.

“Hey, Ratchet. Where's Optimus?”

“Away on business,” Ratchet said, placing his empty bowl on the table beside June's. “Report to Arcee in the meantime.”

“Oh. Yes, sir.” Smokescreen pulled a sharp salute and went to find the sylph.

Ratchet went to stand up, and his knees seized. He braced himself on the table and hissed through his teeth, rubbing the cramping muscle.

“All right there, doc?” Miko and Jack both came to his aid; only Miko touched him, however, and when she did a shock like electricity went through him from the arm she'd taken hold of. 

They both jerked away from each other. Ratchet shook his hand, feeling the tips of his fingers tingle.

Miko recovered first, and laughed. “Feeling a bit static, Ratch?”

Ratchet hrmphed. “I am perfectly functional.”

He turned away from the table, intending to go back to his work. The children went back to their chatter, with occasional input from Bulkhead and June.

Across the silo, Smokescreen finished up his report, and Arcee dismissed him. He went back to Optimus' old console, which had lain unused since the mission which had resulted in his and Ratchet's capture and body-swap. Ratchet wasn't quite sure what the rookie was using it for; a video game of some sort, it looked like.

Smokescreen turned on the console. He stared at the scene which greeted him, and his hands flew to his head in consternation.

“Scrap! I thought I left my guy in a safe spot, but a tiger attacked me!”

Ratchet shook his head. For some people, it would always be business as usual.

* * *

Sunday morning greeted Ratchet in the shadowy pre-dawn period. At first he thought that he was dreaming again, but the beep and flash of the alarm clock going off convinced him of reality.

He went to turn onto his side in order to reach it, and found he couldn't move.

Ratchet tried to frown. His facial muscles failed to obey his brain's command.

At the side of the bed, the red flash of the clock face coloured the edge of his field of vision. He stared at the darkened ceiling, gathering his thoughts.

Either he was still asleep and dreaming, or his human body had suffered a catastrophic breakdown. By the All Spark, Ratchet hoped the former.

His vision gradually lost the blur of sleep. He began to notice flecks of shadowy blackness, drifting across the room.

His heart began to thump in his chest.

Ratchet again tried to move. The muscle in the arch of his foot twitched.

The shadows deepened. At the sides of the bed, where he could only try to see what detail he could out of the corners of his sight.

The dim outline of the light, offline overnight, disappeared behind a floating cloud of black miasma.

Ratchet's pulse thumped a rapid hammer-strike in the veins of his inner ears. He tried to deepen his breathing and slow it down.

Weight slowly pressed down on the far edge of the bed.

There was a gathering cloud of blurry-featured blackness in about the place responsible.

Throwing caution to the wind, Ratchet struggled against whatever force held him in place. Helpless fear coursed through him. His fingertips twitched.

Something touched his foot through the blankets.

It was cold, a sharp and freezing touch like the wind over snow. The indistinct shape of a hand wrapped around his ankle.

He managed to make an undignified noise, somewhere between a croak and a whisper. It disguised the bloom of relief as his fingers closed into a loose, weak fist.

The coldness crept slowly up his body. Cold fingers traced patterns over his skin. The mass of shadows drew closer. 

Slowly, it coalesced into a humanoid shape. By the time it reached his groin, he could see two darker pits in the blob of its head that might have been eyes. Orbital hollows, at the very least.

It was looking at him. 

Dull terror filled his veins, flooded his bloodstream and blocked out coherent thought. He was afraid to the very core of his body of what would happen once it reached his head.

Frost reached over his chest, tickling his collarbones. The thing dropped its head. Ratchet's shallow exhalations condensed into white steam.

The blare of the Decepticon proximity alarm going off had never been so welcomed.

The apparition vanished; the weight lifted from Ratchet's body. The room was warm and comfortable again, as if it had never been disturbed.

Ratchet rocketed upright and threw himself out of the bed. He reached the door and threw it open, racing out into the silo.

Bulkhead was on night watch, carefully tracking the Decepticon signatures as they moved across northern Nevada. He turned at the sound of Ratchet's harsh gasping, the slap of his bare feet against the concrete. 

“Whoa, Ratch. Are you all right?”

Ratchet managed a shake of his head. He stumbled closer to Bulkhead, reaching out physically and mentally.

“Okay,” said Bulkhead. He carefully scooped Ratchet's naked body into his hand and brought it to his chest, where his spark thrummed strong and healthy under the layers of his armour. “What's happened?”

Ratchet pressed himself to the warm metal, grounding himself. “I don't know,” he managed. His voice sounded terrible, shaky and creaking; his vision was blurring as his eyes filled with involuntary tears. “I'll—I'll ask June, later.”

Bulkhead went back to the monitors, stroking his thumb down Ratchet's back. It was a motion one might perform for a terrified sparkling, but Ratchet felt his human body responding to the offered comfort. His shaking slowed, and thought the tears spilled over and coursed down his face, they didn't last for long.

Eventually Ratchet felt strong enough to ask to be let down. He patted Bulkhead's thumb on the way down, silent gratitude for both the comfort and the lack of questioning.

“You're welcome,” said Bulk. “Any time, Doc.”

Ratchet paused outside the door to his room. If he went in and the same thing happened... well. He'd just have to hope it wouldn't. 

He opened the door.

The room was as he'd left it, spotless but for the ripped comforter he'd dropped on the floor as he fled.

He hurried over to his cupboard, pulling out a loose shirt and a pair of jeans. He put them on in record time, hopping on one foot out into the corridor as he adjusted the other leg of the jeans.

He shut the door, and after a moment of consideration, locked it.

Arcee gave him a searching look as he returned to the silo, scrubbing at his eyes with the heel of his palm. Ratchet acted as if he hadn't noticed, and she eventually turned away, going back to the monitoring station.

The wash of cold air as he opened the new base fridge reminded him of the apparition's icy touch. He closed his eyes and counted to ten before he reached in for the milk bottle.

The bustle of the waking base made for an effective distraction. It was Arcee's turn on patrol today; she nodded a greeting at him as she passed on her way to the ground bridge gate.

June arrived with the children at a little past ten AM. As they arranged themselves in front of the TV, she approached Ratchet at his worktable, concern in her eyes.

“Are you feeling all right?” she asked, leaning against the mezzanine railing. “You look rather somber.”

Ratchet struck the save key with a little more force than was probably necessary. “I... haven't had a good morning,” he admitted. 

June made an empathic noise. “Is it anything I can help with?”

Ratchet hesitated. June had been a godsend in the weeks since he and Optimus had become more or less human; her work as a nurse made her uniquely able to help them acclimate to the norms and exoticisms of organic life. If anyone had a logical explanation for his experience, it would be her.

In a slow, halting voice, he recounted the morning's visitation. 

June simply nodded, her expression giving away nothing bar empathic concern. Her grey eyes narrowed fractionally when Ratchet spoke of the apparition, but a sharp nod as he finished his tale told him that it was recognition rather than suspicion.

“From what you've told me, it sounds like sleep paralysis,” she said, and gave him a sympathetic smile. “I haven't ever had it myself, but I've known several people who did, either in the recurrent or isolated form.”

Relief swamped Ratchet all at once. He sagged against the workstation, hands braced against the edge of the table.

“It was terrifying,” he murmured. “I couldn't move. It was as though something was holding me down.”

June nodded again. “Most people report similar feelings. I hope it won't happen again – but if it does, tell me. All right?”

Ratchet let out a gusty breath. “I will. Thank you.”

There was a moment of quiet. 

It was broken by a soft utterance of “Oh,  _dude._ ”

Ratchet turned.

Miko stood by the mezzanine stairs, a can of soda in her hand. Her eyes were wide, and, contrary to all the fears that had gone through Ratchet's mind at the sound of her voice, they held nothing but shocked commiseration.

“Oh, man,” she repeated. “You had it too?”


End file.
